


Time, So Complained Of

by KatyaZel



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Emotional Baggage, Emotionally Repressed, Epistolary, Letters, M/M, Memories, Old Friends, On the Run, Post-Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Unpacking, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 00:33:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17652641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatyaZel/pseuds/KatyaZel
Summary: "How did it feel to see me in the shack? When all we could share was a hug and an enemy and the story of how it all happened. Did you want to punch me, kiss me, prove to yourself I was real?"Letters between Remus and Sirius, following the events of POA. The two navigate distance, blame, guilt, and memories, all while Sirius teeters on the edge of sanity.





	1. Summer

**Author's Note:**

> This can be seen as a prequel of sorts to "Don't Let me Drown." Since I'm writing it many months after I wrote that, I'm not 100% convinced these exact letters would lead to those exact interactions, but broadly, that's what this is.

Don’t beat yourself up. Not your fault, and my new feathered friend and I are having a grand time. Running is better than sitting, always was. Well, maybe beat yourself up a little. Not for this, for twelve years ago, for not helping me then. Though I’m sure you  already blamed yourself for that, too. Be okay, then, yeah? Be fine.

Write me. Tell me anything. Be careful.

\--Padfoot

*****

Dear Padfoot,

I had been waiting to get a letter from you, and was beginning to worry I might not. I’m glad you wrote, and glad you seem to know me as well as ever. Of course I blame myself--how could I not? I’ve been living with this condition my whole life; to forget like that, as a man in my 30s, is at least embarrassing, if not shameful.

You say to beat myself up for twelve years ago, and on that point, I’ll have to argue. Beat myself up for believing what everyone purported to be true, what my own eyes and ears seemed to confirm, and what six months of increasingly alienating behavior on your part suggested? Admit that, at least: you gave me more reason to suspect than trust you that summer. And let’s not forget  _ your  _ suspicions of me. What would you have thought, if the roles were reversed?

I tried to blame myself every which way, though, right afterwards. I blamed myself for the rat’s death, for our two dear friends, for not taking in their son. I  blamed myself for not telling anyone how oddly you were acting, and then I blamed myself for how oddly you were acting. I scarcely left the flat for months, spinning in circles around it all. Spinning in circles around you, and getting dizzy from it. 

I’m through with that, though, and have been for years now. If my mind tries to take me there I firmly reject the offer. No more circles for me, when I can help it.

I’m visiting my mother soon. My father died, by the way, while you were gone. I suppose you wouldn’t know. How would you feel if I told her about you? I’ll defer to your judgment.

\--Moony

*****

Dearest Moony:

How formal a letter to receive whilst perched in a cave! Where that cave might be, I shan’t reveal. As I said, and as you observed, we must be careful if we are to continue such a correspondence. No cave locales.

I gave you reason to suspect? Maybe. But weren’t things better? I think they were, at the end? Memory is one of the tricky things, even after being out almost a year. But I think we were trusting each other again, I thought we were, right at the end. 

I am sorry to hear about your father. I don’t really know what to say. It’s terrible, isn’t it, yet it’s hard for me to understand it in the proper way, I think. I think it’s hard for me to understand anything. Not brain but heart. 

Tell your mother, tell her everything. I trust her more than I trust you, even. I wish I could see her. Maybe someday.

Have to get it together. Writing to my godson soon. Man on the run. Hm.

\--Padfoot

*****

Dear Padfoot,

I hope you aren’t put off by formality in correspondence. It’s rather hard for me to write any other way, which I think you should know. Do you remember our letters that Christmas holiday, seventh year? I don’t think a person would know we were writing to each other, they were so vastly different in style.

Yes, things were better at the end. Better than the long, long summer. Better, but still not good. I was being sent on suicide missions, and you thought I was betraying everyone. Even at the end, you still thought that, at least a little. Enough to act strangely, and sometimes coldly. Unpredictably, I suppose. For all your wild nature, there was always some predictability about you, until that summer. 

What I mean by that, maybe, is that I  _ knew _ you, through and through, and what others saw as wild, I knew was simply your way. But that summer things changed, and I could never reach nor read you. It was unlike you to be so very distant, but some days still you seemed to retain that affectionate nature. What was I to think? I would emerge from a shower to find you scouring my bookshelf; I would return from a mission to find a note that said simply  _ ‘don’t wait,’  _ and you’d be gone for days. But every moon, there you were. And a time or two you swept into the flat with roses as though you had never hurt me.

Thank you for the permission to tell my mother. You know how she loved you, or perhaps you don’t know. I don’t think I knew quite how much until you were gone. She always harbored more pity than blame for you, despite what we thought we knew. 

Be careful writing to your godson. Be careful, in general, Pads. I’m worried for you. Try to reign your thoughts in, will you? If I could be there to help, I would be.

\--Moony

*****

Dear Moony,

I am having trouble reigning in my thoughts. Maybe you can have a go sometime. 

Sorry, sorry, sorry. I’m sorry for all the things I did or said or didn’t say. You’re right, I’ve been shit, haven’t I. You come home and how are you supposed to trust someone like me? I like the idea of roses; perhaps I’ll try it. Does that work on you?

I don’t remember, or, I do remember but it’s not memories. That doesn’t make sense.

There’s a tree I keep wanting to climb but somehow my body is so much older than it ought to be. How is the moon treating you these days? I miss it. Someday soon I’ll be with you for it again. I’d never miss that, you’re right. It matters too much. 

Don’t stop writing, please, please, please. I know I’m mad, I know it and I know it, but please keep sending me letters. I try not to write anything to my godson when I feel this way, but I need to be able to write you. Do you miss me? Did you miss me? How did it feel to see me in the shack? When all we could share was a hug and an enemy and the story of how it all happened. Did you want to punch me, kiss me, prove to yourself I was real? I wanted to but I couldn’t, couldn’t do any of that in front of the children. 

I think I’m in the flat now. Come home soon.

Love,

Padfoot

*****

Dear Padfoot,

I will not stop writing you. Your being mad didn’t stop me from living with you, so I don’t see why it would keep me from maintaining our correspondence. I promise to keep writing.

And of  _ course  _ I missed you. I miss you now. I feel less guilty over it now than when I thought you were a murderer, but even then I couldn’t help myself, especially at first. I think I told you before, but I spent a long time absolutely wasting away in the flat, imagining somehow you would come home and everything would have been some horrible mistake. I suppose after a fashion that is what happened. Of course I miss you. 

The moon is as kind to me as ever, but I have a stronger defense than I used to. My furry friend, like me, is older now, less prone to melodrama, and so things are a little easier. He has missed his friend as much as I have mine, and indeed for a long time, far more. A year after I could go through a week without hopelessly wishing you back, he would still howl all night for that dog.

Roses don’t work very well on me. You’ll have better luck with finely bound books.

You aren’t making me worry less about you. Send me letters in whatever mood you must, but perhaps if you’re feeling particularly lucid anytime soon you might write me some reassurances. I want you to be okay. Remember where you are, and when you are. We do not share a flat. It is not 1980. You have a godson to care about.

\--Remus

P.S. My mother was absolutely overcome when I told her. She misses you and hopes to see you, someday. She made me promise to relay that you are welcome at any time in her house, and she will protect you as best she can; I told her that you are almost certainly in another country, but she wouldn’t hear it. She sends love.

*****

Dear Moony,

As per your request, a letter written in a lucid state of mind; as lucid as I can be, at least.

I’m glad you missed me, glad it wasn’t just me, I guess. I’m not  _ glad _ you spent so long in the flat being miserable, but I’m glad I’m not the only one who suffered through it. But I do think I got the worse end of the deal, don’t you? I won’t hide it, I’m a little pissed. You talk about  _ wondering  _ if somehow there was a  _ mistake,  _ and of course there was--or rather not a mistake, all very intentional--but for all of your wondering and speculating, why did you never look into it? Never visited, never poked around. I’m sure you would have found something if you had just  _ looked.  _ And instead I got to lose a decade, more than that.

My feathered friend and I are on the move again. I never could stay in one place very long, even when no one chased me. Well, with the exception being that last flat of ours. Home. Do you suppose the building is there still? Old piece of shit was barely standing when we lived there, I can’t imagine it still is now. 

I miss your mother, too. I don’t want to write to her; it feels dangerous, somehow. But tell her for me, tell her I still love her. I miss her cooking, too, though it’s on my mind simply due to total lack of food. Not total, don’t go worrying too much. The dog has grown quite good at hunting. 

Is this reassuring enough? I can form sentences; I know when and where I am, enough so to be kind of angry at you over it. Enough to be angry, but also enough to wonder how I might get my hands on one of these finely bound books you say work so well on you.

Love,

Padfoot

*****

Dear Pads,

I can’t blame you for your anger. It’s rather justified. I can’t let myself lose sleep over these kinds of things anymore, but know that I deeply regret not doing anything in the immediate aftermath, or even years later.

But you have to understand, when I say I was rotting in the flat for months, I don’t mean that I  _ decided  _ to give up and lie around. I  _ could not leave.  _ You’ve seen me at some very low points, but no depression I ever experienced matched that of the time following that Halloween. First, months in the flat; then, mum dragged me home with her, where I began to get better incrementally, but still absolutely floundered; then, a total relapse when I tried to move back to London. When my father told me I ought to relocate and seek help, I knew I couldn’t ignore it, given how often I had heard him speak so derisively of  _ therapy  _ and  _ depression.  _ He was convinced of their validity by my absolute failure to function.

In the end, really, almost the only way I could carry on and live a life was by saying goodbye to you. I’m sorry, and you can consider that an apology in perpetuity, but I can’t dwell on it. I don’t let myself dwell on things anymore, if I can help it. It only leads deeper into my brain.

I do feel reassured by your letter. I only wish I could be there with you--wherever  _ there  _ is, now. If you can describe your locale in a very general sort of way, paint me a picture. 

Well, write soon and stay safe.

\--Moony

*****

Writing soon, staying safe. Mind unclear why. Miss and love you, of course, and sorry for all the mental for all the mental anguish is that a word? More I look less it seems likely. Do you remember that time by the lake? I miss your half-grin

Love from Padfoot


	2. Autumn

Dear Padfoot,

Letters are so unbelievably frustrating, aren’t they? I’m sure by the time I got that last note of yours you were no longer as unhinged, and by the time you get this one you’ll likely be doing better, but I’m stuck reading and rereading a document of your mind’s unrest. It eats me up. 

I sat this morning at work  as the early sun streamed in and I did nothing but remember. I can’t recall if I’ve told you where I work, but to no one’s surprise I’m at a university library. I worked here before, actually, and my boss was quite fond of me and so quick to hire me again after my brief teaching stint. Anyway, though, this morning, with few students crowding the stacks so early in the day, I remembered. Generally I don’t indulge in this but after receiving your letter something inside me just couldn’t help it.

I thought of all the lovely things that I don’t let myself near, normally: cooking Christmas dinner, just the two of us, 1979; listening to every new Bowie album,  _ Diamond Dogs  _ to  _ Scary Monsters _ ; feeling safe every moon, feeling safe in our bed; being so known by you, and knowing you so well.

And for years, duck made me sick, Bowie made me sad, I never felt safe, and I had no interest in being known again. When more years had passed since 1981 than we had been together, I told myself to change something, and I began living again. I listened to all the Bowie albums I’d missed (they have not, universally, been gems). I loved again, let someone see me. I stopped glancing over my shoulder for you.

Now, of course, here you are again, and once more I think I have to revisit what all these things, and a million more, mean to me. It doesn’t scare me, though. I don’t get scared the way I used to, and I want to do this, to pick through the mess we have between us. What else do you need to ask me, tell me, yell at me for? I promise I can take it.

Let me be honest: I write all this to try and tether you to something, perhaps to tether myself as well. I do wish I could help you more; unfortunately I think distance disallows it. Hopefully the distance will not always be so great. You can tell me, if you need help, truly need someone--you can tell me, and I will try. If you need me.

Love,

Moony

*****

Dear Moony,

_ If  _ I need you? Every inch of me is aching for you. There’s not one piece of me that isn’t just waiting for you. If I write enough letters like my last will you find me and let me stop waiting?

The distance as you say is hard, and has been of course for years and years but to know you’re out there, writing me, not hating me, but so many miles away from me...it’s worse now.

You say you loved someone and let them see you and I absolutely demand that you tell me about this. I’m madly jealous, and every detail you write will absolutely eat me up but you  _ have  _ to tell me. You’re in no position to refuse me, are you?

If we weren’t intent on keeping these letters at least a little discreet (are we? Nothing’s happened yet), I would tell you exactly what I would do if you suddenly appeared in front of me. Do you remember your 20th birthday? (I’d be offended if you didn’t.) That.

And of course you work in a bloody library. As you say, to no one’s surprise. Do all the uni students make up questions so they can talk with the dreamy librarian? God I can just picture you, in that streaming light you describe, bent over a fucking card catalog or whatever it is you do. I’d hop over the desk and push your hair out of your eyes, and you’d look up surprised because when you concentrate you can be deaf to the world, and then I’d kiss you right there in your bloody library in front of god and everyone. 

Anything else I need to ‘ask you, tell you, yell at you for.’ I’ll give you one of each. I’ll ask how many lovers you’ve had. I’ll tell you that even if I hadn’t been in Azkaban I never would have taken another. I’ll yell at you again for leaving me there. I know, I know, you’ve written why, and it makes sense and logically maybe I can’t be mad but I still am, and you’ll have to live with that.

I miss you intensely and constantly for a number of reasons and I don’t want you to feel too objectified because I do miss your conversation, your laugh, the way you have of keeping me steady when my mind threatens to derail. I miss all those things, a million more as well, but I also really,  _ really _ miss your body. In case you couldn’t tell, there you have it. I miss your arms and your hands and every scar on your chest, and I can’t wait to be reunited with every component part of you.

I’ll try to keep writing in what you call lucid states. Sorry for that last one. I sincerely hope this makes up for it.

Write back soon. Answer my questions. Tell me about this person you’ve loved.

Love,

Padfoot

***

Dear Padfoot,

I can’t say that, when I opened your letter, I expected all that, especially after the incomprehensibility that preceded it.

I need you to know this: when I see you again, we will not run into each other’s arms and we will not kiss. It will not be a grand romantic reunion, and I’m sorry for leading you to think otherwise. You don’t know me anymore, not truly; I’m quite a different person now. I need you to know that we cannot and should not pretend that the last thirteen years never happened. Tell me you understand. 

I can tell you about Meredith, if you insist, though as you say it will only make you miserable. We met when I had moved back to London for the second time, in 1987. It was the end of a long, hot summer during which Maggie Thatcher was reelected, 16 muggles were attacked and killed around Leeds, and the Ministry, with Millicent Bagnold struggling to maintain relevancy and control following the death-eater trials, cracked down on other undesirables. This included me.

There was a knock on my door one Saturday morning and when I opened it, there she was, Meredith Spitzer, all one hundred and fifty centimeters of her staring at me with eyes full of aggressive and pointed compassion. Without pleasantries, she explained to me that she was a representative of the Association for Wolven Rights and was checking in on registered werewolves to ensure they had not been harassed by the increasingly violent Ministry representatives. All this she explained to me without breaking eye contact or letting me say a word, and when she was done I invited her in to tea. She tilted her head and nodded and shook my hand. “I’m Meredith, by the way.” “I’m Remus,” I said, to which she rolled her eyes. “I know that already.”

She was the first, and really the only, serious relationship I had after 1981. I made sure we would see each other again by joining her work. My interest in that was genuine; the Association, though far from perfect, was the only group standing up to the Ministry’s overreach for the year or so it was really bad. But more and more of our “work meetings” turned into lengthy conversations, which turned into walks and tea and pubs and dancing. She reminded me that I wasn’t actually an old man yet, that I could still live, and I never felt I had to hide from her. 

And it was perfect for a long time. I thought that long time might stretch to forever, but after three and a half years things changed. It was nothing dramatic, which was probably good for me; we just began to drift apart, fall out of love, you might say. Meredith remains a friend, but it’s been four years now since we split.

Is that what you wanted? What you needed to read? Does this--the knowledge that I did not spend the entire decade in love with you--help you understand? I’m sorry to be the cause of any more pain. But I need you to know.

\--Moony

***

Well bloody hell, Moony.

What did I fucking expect? Jesus. Fuck. Of course. Meredith. She sounds sane and sweet and good, all the things I never could be. Normal? Selfless. Was she blonde? How many parts of me, of our relationship, did you grow out of? 

And you didn’t answer my other question, how many lovers you’ve had, so of course the number must be very high. How many of them were women? Maybe it shouldn’t matter. Maybe nothing should. How many of them were women? 

_ ‘You  don’t know me anymore, not truly’  _ Do you think that’s true? Tell me, tell me more, everything, I want to know you again. I wish you were just here. Wouldn’t have to wait on letters or rely on written words which simply can’t tell me what you really feel, not you. 

When I saw you in the Shack I swore I saw it in your eyes, felt it in your embrace, heard it in your retelling of our youth--I swore you felt exactly as I did. Think again, Sirius, bloody idiot, why would he still care about you? Old and almost dead and nothing, nothing in your brain and rot in your heart, of course Remus doesn’t want you anymore. If he ever did. 

Bloody hell. 

\--Sirius

***

Dear Padfoot,

I’m sorry, really I am.  _ Please  _ try to remember to be careful in your letters, though. Your name isn’t exactly common, and anyone who saw that letter wouldn’t have to work hard to understand. 

You are not old, and you are far from dead. Your mind and your heart are still yours, and I and countless others loved and love you for them. Remember that. 

\--Moony

***

Dear Moony,

I just received the shortest letter from you. I’m sorry for slipping up--I’ll confess, I don’t remember writing that last letter. I don’t remember what was in it, I don’t remember sending it. If I didn’t still have your prior letter I wouldn’t even know what it was about, but obviously and of course it was a response to  _ Meredith _ . Sorry for that, if I was awful. 

I’m in quite good (and lucid!) spirits today. Witherwings and I flew over an enormous lake (under a few layers of disguise spells, I promise) and I thought I might cry, it was so perfect. Trees taller than you can imagine, Moony, and older I’d reckon too. Do you ever think that trees might be the only things that will matter, someday? Trees and water.

I did appreciate your words of reassurance; it’s true, that we aren’t so old. Not  _ so  _ old. I’m sure we both feel it for different reasons but really there’s life in us yet. If only I could eat more. Do you think we’re older than other people our age because of all the extra time we’ve spent awake? If you sleep twenty hours in a week  rather than fifty, you do get to live a little more, yeah?

Do you still stay up? Sometimes I wonder if my insomnia would have gradually disappeared on its own if I hadn’t been locked up. Time meant almost nothing there, and being awake was barely different from being asleep, at least in terms of seeing my nightmares.

Are you proud of me? I think this was a top-notch letter. Lucid, civil, and not flirtatious at all. I’m not done feeling whatever it is your letter had me feeling, but I won’t belabor the point with you. I hate it, but I understand.

Write me back, but know I won’t be able to reply for some time. We’re travelling soon, quite a distance this time.

Love, 

Padfoot

***

Dear Padfoot,

However uselessly, I keep trying to guess where you might be. I liked your thought about trees, and it seems true enough. Someday I’ll have to take Witherwings and just fly. I feel so weighted down, so very earthbound sometimes. 

I certainly sleep more than I did when you knew me. It returns, sometimes, the insomnia, but never for as long and not nearly as often as it used to. It takes me by surprise, now, whereas before I was constantly expecting it. And dreading it, after 1981. When I had to pass those nights alone, with my thoughts running circles around me. 

They still do that, sometimes. I think I’ve tried to communicate how I’m better, how I’m different, how things have changed, and for the most part it’s true. I am better. But that doesn’t mean I never go backwards. Your letter, the one you forgot all about, sent me backwards, as it seems mine about Meredith did to you. (Are you concerned about the forgetting? How long is blocked out?) 

Your letter, with all its self-doubt and shame, said to me: he is not alright, and it is at your  hands. That thought stuck with me, and as happened all too often when we were together, I ended up feeling guilty for something beyond my control. At least I can recognize it now for what it is. 

I visited my mother last weekend. She keeps asking after you, and I keep telling her that we write but she shouldn’t expect to see you. Still, she keeps buying your favorite biscuits in a sort of tempered optimism. She’s begun writing her life’s story; I’m not sure whether she has a notion of getting it published, but she wants me to read it when she’s done. I’m not sure I can, knowing all I do about her life. Knowing that there are some things I don’t yet know about her life.

Safe travels, of course, and write as soon as you’re able. It’s nice to know at least that, if something happened to you, it would be international news, so not hearing from you isn’t worrisome as long as I also don’t hear from the  _ Prophet.  _

Best, 

Moony


	3. Winter

Dear Moony,

I think you can try as hard as you want and you’ll never guess where I am right now. Closer than you expect, probably. There’s all this madness happening with my godson, and Mad-Eye, and I have to help him, keep him safe or try at least. What good am I at that? Who knows. But I can do what I can do.

And I’m so bloody hungry, like you wouldn’t believe. I can’t sleep for how hungry I am, but I can’t sleep anyway so maybe that’s not a going concern. 

Do you think we’ll ever share insomnia again? I fell in love with you because you let me see you late at night, sleepless, trusting. So different from your letters. So different from you, most of the time with most people. Open. 

You talk about guilt, guilt for things you can’t help. “As happened all too often when we were together…” (you really are so bloody formal.) So tell me: can we go back and see what was wrong, really wrong? You and your evolved sense of self, do you know? Tell me what I did wrong and maybe I can change. I think I can change. Too late, maybe?

And please don’t interpret that as continued hopes for anything more than you want to give. I know what you’ve said: we’re different people. Nothing will happen. But I need to know. Want to know, anyway. 

Your mother is a dear. I haven’t had those biscuits in over a decade and I’m sorely tempted to say fuck it all and apparate right into her kitchen. I won’t, but know I want to.

Love,

Padfoot

***

Dear Padfoot, 

I can’t tell you what  _ you  _ did wrong, because I don’t know that you  _ did  _ do anything specifically wrong. A lot of our relationship, especially at first, was the best thing that could have happened to me. But between my brain and yours, there were too many frayed wires to last long without some sort of fire. Add the tremendous outside pressures we faced--our friends dying and hiding and lying, the two of us almost getting ourselves killed on a weekly basis, etc--and the situation was bound to explode. 

But yes, I guess I can say your biggest misstep was when you stopped talking to me about things that mattered. You stopped trusting me and that hurt, Pads. But like I said, who could blame us for what happened next? We had a friend intentionally driving us apart, after all, and we were both so unwell. 

You might be surprised to hear Jorkins unexpectedly wrote me. He’s in town for a few days and wanted to grab a drink. Have you heard about his sister? Still no sign of her. I expect it won’t be an incredibly fun evening, but I feel for the poor man. Bertha never was the brightest, but she seems to have disappeared off the map. 

I hope you’re cautious in extending a hand to your godson. Lord knows he could use help, but if you’re close by, I’m very worried. I know that you’re smart, and that the dog can run and hide, but even so. Please, please, be careful. I don’t really know what to make of the tournament--I’m not in touch with him, or anyone there, and so I must rely on the Prophet. You well know how dangerous a game that can be. 

Love,

Moony

***

Dear Moony,

You’d absolutely kill me if you could. Broke into a house last night just to talk to my godson by floo. He’s so much more grown than we were at that age, Moony. So much better than we were, I think. Than Prongs was, even. Things are dire, maybe, at the very least quite bad. I have heard about Bertha and I don’t know what to make of it. Any of it. You’d kill me for being so reckless, I think, but you’d be proud of how good I was. Lucid, as you’d say. He doesn’t know about my mind, not really. 

It’s shocking to be so trusted. And he does it just like Prongs, too. Told me everything and trusted my advice and opinion completely. I don’t know, I wish he had someone better to trust.  _ I  _ wouldn’t look to me for rational advice, but I’m doing my best and I think my best is better than he’s getting elsewhere. 

But what about you, Moony? Can you give me any good reason you aren’t writing him, didn’t write him, didn’t have anything to do with him for thirteen years? I know it’s hard for you, I’m not saying it isn’t, but Jesus. I was locked up, Prongs was dead, and Wormtail was scum. And so he was raised by that fucking family, still has to live with them, and never even  _ heard  _ of you, or from you, until you show up at his school. I mean, is it so much to send a letter?

But I’ll give you that--for thirteen years you couldn’t do anything. Okay. Now? After you’ve met him? Do you have an excuse? I think he must be getting so many slivers of advice or snippets of quasi-parenting from so many different people, and you aren’t one of them, and I know you’d be the best one. Constant and staid and rational and good, that’s what you are, and I think he could use that, frankly.

I could use that, too. Your letters keep me sane, Moony. I only think he deserves some piece of that, too,

Love,

Padfoot

***

Dear Padfoot,

I’ve told you how unable I was to leave the flat after that Halloween. The major exception was for Prongs’s and Evans’s funeral. It hurt so very much to be there, but I made myself go, and there I met Evans’s sister, quite by accident. Neither of us stayed for the reception after, and I found myself walking aimlessly in the road, where she nearly hit me with her car.

I stood numbly as she yelled at me, and I don’t remember if I said anything at all in response. I remember her car was a muted grey, and she was dressed in a neat black suit, and after thoroughly abusing me, she began to cry. 

I recognized her vaguely from the wedding, and from the car and outfit I think I guessed more than knew who she was, but I tried to tell her I loved her sister, felt for her loss, and sympathized. Now through tears, she began to yell at me again about sympathizing and useless sentiments and raising two children.

Padfoot, you have to believe me when I tell you I thought she would do right by him. She was so devastated at her sister’s death, so concerned with how to raise two children that, in my dim understanding, I thought she  _ had  _ to care about your godson. She was less than the most pleasant woman I’d met, but I assumed she was just as consumed with grief as I.

I regret that I took that encounter as sufficient proof to keep me from checking more carefully, but you  know how I fell so precipitously for the following several years. The few times Dumbledore bothered to contact me in the interim, he assured me that Harry was thriving, intelligent, well cared for, and I didn’t think to doubt him. An aunt, an uncle, and a cousin in a stable home in a pleasant neighborhood--simply listed out, doesn’t it sound idyllic? 

And why would I insert myself in any way into that scenario? I thought about writing him, certainly, but I always stopped myself. I couldn’t imagine what good it could possibly do him to suddenly receive a letter from a friend of his parents who was riddled with anxiety about every word he wrote. 

And now, maybe I don’t have an excuse. When I submitted my resignation, Dumbledore told me--in oh-so-gentle a tone and with that sympathetic shine in his eyes--that I’d do best to leave Harry be. I knew what he was doing, and it’s been fifteen years since I really trusted him to look after anyone’s emotional or psychological well-being, but it’s stuck with me. Maybe he was right, after all. And it only gets harder as months pass. What would I write  _ now?  _ ‘Sorry it took six months, but how’s life?’ 

I can’t give myself satisfactory explanations for my own behavior. How do I account for it to someone else, especially someone so young? How do I account for it to you? I don’t think this is quite satisfactory, is it?

All that said, you were absolutely right that I would kill you if I could. I know you set your life at a low value for your own sake, but think of me, and more so, think of Harry. You can’t just  _ break into people’s homes.  _ You absolute idiot. I’m glad you didn’t get killed or arrested, but you know you could have, right?

_ Try _ to be careful. I’ll keep writing it, even knowing how little you seem to listen. 

Love, 

Moony

***

Dear Moony,

Sorry this letter is so late. Happy Christmas.

I haven’t written because my mind has had nothing for you. Bad day after bad day. But I figure you want to hear from me anyway, at least I hope. Cheers for the explanation, about Harry, and I can’t respond to it properly. Don’t know if I buy it or not, but guess that doesn’t matter much.

Regulus. My mind is filled with him lately. God knows why. He’s all that’s there and so he’s all you’ll get. Sorry.

It’s Christmas soon, or recently, or today. I’m not sure. He gave me the sweetest fucking gifts every year. Things he’d made or written, sometimes. Officially, nothing, because we weren’t to give each other things, that was a rule. Or at least, no one was to give me things. But we’d go to bed after every disastrous Christmas dinner and he’d come into my room with whatever he’d thought of. He hunted down an out-of-print memoir by Leonora DiMetri one year. You remember I would read that out loud to you sometimes in the common room? All her wild stories and witticisms about that Venetian circle of wizards in the 1890s. I don’t even know how he knew I was so obsessed with her that year, but I know I looked in every bookshop I could find for that book for months, and he somehow materialized a copy and gave it to me with a pleased grin. Do you have that? Do you have all my books? What happened to them? I think it had a note from him.

What happened to him? And what did I do wrong? Every fucking time someone loves me. Something happens. I found out he had joined them and it was such dissonance for me because it was still Reg. I didn’t find out for about a year, actually, that he had joined them. I found out a year after and realized that for a whole year every time I’d seen him, thought things were the same, he had already chosen. I wanted to hate him and I did. I was out of the house already and I was torn absolutely to pieces by guilt all the fucking time but I still hated him. Did he do it for our parents, to keep them from hurting him? Did they hurt him more after I left, after I took away their favorite target? 

Why didn’t he run with me? I told him to. I asked him I begged him I wanted him to come with me. Why didn’t he, Moony? Maybe I had to push harder, drag him away. I don’t know. Do I blame him for joining. I hate him. Was it his fault. It has to have been. I can’t excuse death eaters just because they had shit families. Right?

He died. My little brother died. Making a weak gesture towards leaving, I guess, maybe seeing where it would end. I don’t know. What do you think. You never had a brother, and you never lived in my house with a brother. And you never knew how  _ good  _ he could be. Our parents left me love starved and he was too, but he was never a whore about it like I was. It was different for him. Me, Andromeda, maybe a friend or two, I don’t know, got all his devotion. Yes, I’ll say a friend or two. Most of them were slytherin assholes and he was doing what he had to do but do you remember that Hufflepuff girl he would always walk with, and her twin brother, maybe the Jahma twins, if that was their name. I hope at least. That he had someone.

But not me, not enough. I had to leave, right? Tell me I did. I didn’t have to leave him, though. He didn’t deserve it I didn’t deserve it. He was so much better than me. At being good. Why was he the one who had to die? He could have done so much good. And I didn’t let him. I left him there. 

He would talk mother down sometimes. You know that? When she was feeling very generous in her punishment of me. Give, give, give, that woman. When she gave me dreamless sleep sometimes he would make sure he was in the room when I woke up because he knew how scared I’d be. When she would send him away and keep me in the room he tried not to leave. He would offer her tea. Sometimes it worked, a little. 

What happened there after I left? He’s been dead for fifteen bloody years and I still can’t stop wondering that same question. What did she do to him. Why didn’t I stop it. Why didn’t I stop those fucking death eaters. I could have, I think, but he was gone before I knew it.

Lighten the fucking mood, Moony. Write about something else. Jesus Christ.

Love,

Padfoot

***

Dear Padfoot,

Happy New Year, welcome to 1995.

You fairly ripped my heart out with that letter of yours. I won’t dwell on it, as you asked me not to, but know that from where I sit I’m sympathizing. Fifteen years, five hundred years--that’s who you are. But sometimes you have to accept that there is nothing you could have done. Yes,  _ you had to leave.  _ You would have been killed in that house had you stayed, and you asked him to leave with you. You did what you could.

(I do have all of your books. Most are at my mother’s house, because given how frequently I moved, my father offered to keep them all, over ten years ago. As much for his sake as mine, I’m sure.)

A few years ago, I would have spent tonight celebrating, and here I sit in my orderly flat, writing a letter to a wanted man. Meredith was very good at drawing me out of myself and making me live. Even after we split, some of that effect lingered, but after last year, I find myself ready to act as old as I feel. And I feel ancient. I think I must have lived three lives before I turned thirty.

So New Year’s Eve finds me alone, sipping tea, writing to you. 1994 was far and away the most eventful year I’ve had in a decade, but I’m glad it’s behind me. It gave me some wonderful things--my best friend back, work I enjoyed, a new home near the sea--but for all that, I can’t be overly grateful for it. I lost the job and I lost you, sort of, and I’m nearly as alone as ever. I suppose that’s not what you meant by lighten the mood, though, so let me change tack.

I couldn’t sleep the other day, not at all, and ultimately I ended up sitting and staring at the sunrise. Everyone everywhere can watch the sunrise every day, but somehow I still feel as though it happens just for us, you and me. Hopefully we can watch it again someday. I was thinking, as I watched it that day, about the morning after we sort of made up, right towards the end. I’m sure you remember, after that awful dinner party, when we got home and you finally, finally apologized. We didn’t sleep all night and we watched the sun come up from the rooftop, telling each other everything we’d missed. Almost everything, at least. Even trying our hardest I think we were frightfully bad at sharing certain hard truths.

I’ll tell you something, and maybe it’s cruel to say, certainly it’s selfish, but it’s a hard truth. That morning, thinking about that and thinking about you, hiding out God knows where, I missed it. I wanted you back. All I’ve written you before stands, but I needed to tell you this. This hard truth. I am so  _ old,  _ Padfoot, and I’ve never felt more alive than in your arms early in the morning. I’ve never loved someone in quite that way again.

I’m sorry. I’m sure I shouldn’t have written that, I’m sure it’s cruel to say, but I needed to. 

Love,

Moony

***

Dear Moony,

You’ll understand it took me some time to formulate a reply. When I said to write about something else, I didn’t really mean  _ that.  _

You’re right. That was pretty damn selfish of you. You tell me, four months ago, not to expect  _ anything  _ from you when we see each other again, you tell me about Meredith, you pointedly  _ don’t  _ tell me how many other people you’ve fucked, you tell me there will be  _ nothing _ between us. And now you have the nerve to write a paragraph that I’ve read god knows how many times and say you  _ want me back?  _ That you’ve  _ never loved someone like you did me? _

No, fuck that, fuck you. You don’t get that.Unless you can say that I get to kiss you when I see you for as long as I want, you certainly can’t dangle in front of me the image of you watching the sunrise and dreaming about me. Fuck that. Where’s all that emotional reservedness you’re so damn good at? Where’s the Moony-ness of it all, the hiding your feelings until I spend hours or months or fucking years coaxing them out? You’re just going to tell me about some fleeting moment of nostalgia or lust or whatever the fuck it was? 

I’m glad you were alone on New Years, pricks like you don’t deserve to go out. Lonely as ever? Good. Jesus  _ Christ.  _

If you can keep yourself from being a selfish arse you can write back. Take your time. I’m sure I’ll read your last letter another fifty times anyway.

Padfoot


	4. Spring

Dear Padfoot,

I took your advice and took my time, and now we’re nearly done with February. 

Everything you wrote was justified. I’ll return to my regularly programmed reticence.

I’ve started getting letters from Dumbledore. Is he writing you? He made some oblique reference about it. Be careful in listening to him; you don’t owe him your life twice. He’s concerned, and I’m sure with reason. Brighton isn’t a hotbed of dark magic, but even here there are whispers. You remember all those proto-death eater clubs, the first time around? Idiots with bigoted ideas and victim complexes? Well,  _ Defend Brighton  _ has begun to meet in what used to be a favorite cafe of mine, which has since lost my patronage.

I haven’t been worried about violence in seven or eight years, not since Bagnold’s last few months as Minister. Let’s say simply that I’m glad to be living, for the most part, in the muggle world right now. Muggle bosses and landlords don’t check you against the werewolf registry before dealing with you. 

The moon was two nights ago, and for the first time in a while, it was hard. I’ve been paying hand over fist to get wolfsbane made, but this month it was either that or rent, and since I spent the first thirty years of my life without the potion and only the last two with it, I chose to keep a roof over my head. I told you the wolf is calmer than he used to be, but he was in a  _ state  _ this time around. I returned to work and my employer thought I’d gotten in a particularly nasty barfight.

I want to apologize again for what I wrote. Can you forgive me? I don’t know when we’ll finally see each other, but I hope we can meet amiably. Despite anything else, these letters remind me what it is to have a friend, a real one. I haven’t many.

Are you staying safe? Are you well? I hope you’re eating and sleeping, at least some. Write me. I hope we can resume our normal correspondence.

\--Moony

***

Dear Moony,

Oh, you won’t be happy with me. I’ll get there; let me first address your letter

I forgive you. In a moment of weakness, I suppose, you wrote something you knew would hurt me. I’m sure I’ve written you things that hurt, too, since we began this correspondence. Granted, I likely wasn’t in my right mind, as I often am not, but even so, I can forget it. Well, not  _ forget,  _ but like you said, when we meet, it will be as friends. 

I don’t remember if I knew you were in Brighton. If it’s as it used to be, a very friendly city for your particular proclivities. I’d be lying if I said I hope you’re enjoying  _ that  _ facet of it. I’m sorry, though, that this uncomfortable resurgence is making itself felt there. You say you’re worried about violence--has anyone hurt you? Other than the wolf himself, I mean. I do wonder how well your boss can know you, thinking you’d been out fighting in a pub. 

Dumbledore has been writing me, too. You’re right, that I don’t owe him my life again, but I do owe at least something to my godson, and so I listened to Dumbledore anyway. Which brings us, of course, to the part I know you’ll hate: I am very close to my godson, now, so close that I will see him and his friends over the weekend. There, are you quite unhappy? Rest assured, it’s all at the old man’s advice.  _ I won’t tell you what to do, but there’s a cave quite close to the castle that would be perfect for a dog and his winged friend…  _

Do you remember this cave? I think we probably smoked our first joint here. It’s outside of town. I seem to remember Prongs taking us here first, but we both know how reliable my memory is these days. 

Anyway. I’m here. I am eating--rats. I told my godson to bring food and I hope he brings lots. Am I sleeping? Harder to say for sure. I think I’m staying safe, but by your definitions I might be falling short of that goal. I’m alive, at least, offering what help I can to my godson.

Love,

Padfoot

***

Dear Padfoot,

Jesus  _ christ.  _ I could absolutely kill that old man, and then you, for listening to him. I’m sure he made a quite reasonable, pragmatic suggestion, but  _ christ.  _ What an arse. 

Well then, how’s your godson? Since you’ve seen him in person, which again, is a completely insane thing for you to do. He’s doing well in the tournament, it seems. Prongs would love that. Do you ever think about how damn proud Prongs would be? I suppose that’s our job, on his behalf.

To answer your question, yes, I was attacked not very long ago. A handful of young, brash wizards trailed me home from work; I thought nothing of it, until, once I’d turned into the alley I use as a shortcut, they began yelling and howling at me. Dog, monster, menace--the usual insults. I turned and asked them, quite politely, if I could help them; there were about six or seven, and they all began attacking at once. Most were throwing pretty unsophisticated hexes; one used his bare fists. I got hit by a brick, which had been knocked out of a wall by a poorly aimed spell, but other than that, was completely fine. I disarmed and stunned most of them very quickly; not to brag, but they didn’t really stand a chance. The last two ran off once their friends had been laid low.

And so it’s that sort of thing. I don’t know that we expect Voldemort to come back, but he certainly never had a monopoly on bigoted bullshit. 

God, I’m sorry, I’m not over the fact that you are putting yourself right back in danger. Again, maybe I’m being selfish, but I can’t believe you would do that. I need you alive and free. I won’t even tell you to stay safe or be cautious, because I know how well that goes. Be smart, at least. Be a dog as much as you can. I don’t remember the cave you’re talking about, but half of me wants to find it and wring your neck. 

Love,

Moony

***

Moony, Moony, Moony,

I was so fucking good when they came to visit. You would be proud. Came at a cost: high amount of energy spent to stay sane, so quite a lovely crash once they all left. I’m on the upswing of that crash but I can’t say that all is quite as it should be in my dear old brain. Be warned.

Do you know how badly I want to apparate to Brighton and find those absolute bastards who attacked you?  _ God  _ it’s hard not to. I want to slash each one of them up for even thinking about hurting you. I guess being told you’re a mass murderer for thirteen years almost makes you want to be one. But only when people hurt you, my friend.

I have no fucking idea what to make of this whole mess, with the tournament and Bertha and Crouch and Karkaroff. I only wish I could talk it all out with you. By all means, come wring my neck, but afterwards you have to sit and talk to me. You have to. 

And you, being so hard on Dumbledore. Look at you. I remember an obnoxious little prefect who, when you weren’t actively breaking ten rules, revered the bastard. I’m so very very proud of you, my dear. See the light! The old man gave us everything but abused that absolute trust. You owe him your fucking life, almost, and doesn’t he just fucking know it.

Moony I miss you. It’s so fucking hard, isn’t it. I eat rats, my only friend is a goddamn hippogriff. The first time I get to talk to other people in months, I have to be the adult and it leaves me a complete wreck. I  _ miss  _ you. And given that bullshit you wrote me a few months ago, and given how little I care to filter myself after working so damn hard to keep it together for the kids, I think I’m allowed to tell you. I miss you and I  _ love  _ you and I want to feel your hand or your mouth counting my ribs. I want to kiss every fucking scar the wolf has made since I saw you last. I assume that would occupy my time nicely.

Okay. We’re even. I’ll stop it now. 

It’s nice to write my mind out when I feel this way. Better to you than to my godson. You’ve seen worse. He still thinks I’m something better than what I am.

Love,

Padfoot

***

Dear Padfoot, 

Sorry it took me a while to reply--things have been busy.

Yes, my views on Dumbledore aren’t exactly what they were. I trust him to win a war if we have one, and I trust him to keep alive those he needs most. And I still do almost anything he asks me to. But not without resentment. 

I’m glad things with your godson went well. I hope he brought you plenty of food. I am proud you stayed lucid; I know it’s not always easy. 

Can you meet me on Friday, late, in the shack? There are some things we need to discuss in person. Sooner, rather than later.

I hope to see you soon.

Love,

Moony

***

Dear Moony,

Absolutely. I’ll be there. Eleven, shall we say? 

You know I’m going to be absolutely consumed with curiosity until I see you. And anticipation. As good as it is to write each other, speaking will be worlds better. I’ll be able to read what you feel, for one thing. And these letters have been as fraught as they have been useful. So yes. I’ll see you on Friday. I can’t wait.

Love,

Padfoot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! To watch their meeting unfold, you can read Don't Let Me Drown   
> This was such a fun thing for me to write, my first taste of the epistolary style, so I hope you enjoyed reading it half as much as I did writing. Much love!


End file.
